the latest count of the number of women in the world. So why give up hope because you are only forty-nine?”

[19]

“Forty-four,” corrected the Lawyer.

“Pardon me—forty-four,” said the Idiot. “When you are in the roaring forties, five or six years more or less do not really count. Lots of men who are really only forty-two behave like sixty, and I know one old duffer of forty-nine who has the manners of eighteen. The age question does not really count.”

“No—you are proof of that,” said the[20] Bibliomaniac. “You have been twenty-four years old for the last fifteen years.”

[20]

“Thank you, Mr. Bib,” said the Idiot. “You are one of the few people in the world who really understand me. I have tried to be twenty-four for the past fifteen years, and if I have succeeded, so much the better for me. It’s a beautiful age. You feel that you know so much when you’re twenty-four. If it should turn out to be the answer to ‘How old is Ann?’ the lady should be congratulated. But, as a matter of fact, you can be an Ideal Husband at any old age.”

“Humph! At seven, for instance?” drawled Mr. Brief.

“Seven is not any old age,” retorted the Idiot. “It is a very certain old youth. Nor does it depend upon the color of the eyes, so long as they are neither green nor red. Nobody could ever make an Ideal Husband out of a green-eyed man, or a chap given to the red eye, either—”

“It all depends upon the kind of a man you are, eh?” said the Bibliomaniac.

[21] “Not a bit of it,” said the Idiot. “It depends on the kind of wife you’ve got, and that’s why I say that the Ideal Husband varies to the extent of the latest count of the women in the world. Take the case of Mr. Pedagog here. Mrs. Pedagog accuses him of being an Ideal Husband, and he, without any attempt at evasion, acknowledges the corn, like the honorable gentleman he is. But can you imagine Mr. Pedagog being an Ideal Husband to some lady in the Four Hundred, with a taste for grand opera that strikes only on the box; with a love for Paris gowns that are worth a fortune; with the midnight supper and cotillion after habit firmly intrenched in her character; with an ambition to shine all summer at Newport, all autumn at Lenox, all winter at New York, with a dash to England and France in the merry, merry springtime? Do you suppose our friend John Pedagog 

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